Statins: attacks on doctors reveal ‘smoking guns’ on side effects?
UPDATED 17/03 WITH COMMENT AND BACKGROUND
By Marika Sboros
Is there really “a special place in hell for doctors who claim statins don’t work“? The UK Mail on Sunday health editor Barney Calman believes so. Or at least, that’s the headline to his opinion piece the newspaper published in March.
Calman also believes that some eminent medical doctors and researchers are “statin deniers” who peddle “deadly propaganda”. They are “putting patients at risk”, he writes.
Prof Sherif Sultan, president of the International Vascular Institute, vigorously disagrees. Sultan is also professor of vascular and endovascular surgery at the National University of Ireland Galway. Sultan joins other experts who see “smoking guns” in media attacks on statin critics. They see these attacks as industry and medical establishment attempts to downplay growing evidence on seriousness of statins side effects.
He has said that Calman’s articles are defamatory and propaganda – and the Mail on Sunday acted “negligently” in publishing them. Sultan has called for an investigation into publication of the articles.
“Calman must declare his conflict of interest and publish who instructed him to write such unscientific articles and after what editorial meeting,” Sultan has written.